The Origins of Nucleotides

The origins of life represent one of the most fundamental chemicalquestions being addressed by modern science. One of the longstandingmysteries of this field is what series of chemical reactions couldlead to the MOLECULAR BIOLOGISTS DREAM;a pool of homochiral nucleotides? Here we summarize those resultswe consider to be historically important and outline our recentlypublished research aimed at understanding the chemoselective originsof the -canonical ribonucleotides. 1 Introduction 1.1 Nucleotides: What’s the Problem? 2 Synthesis of Activated Pyrimidines 2.1 Pyrimidine Elaboration by Cyanovinylation 2.2 Photochemical Epimerization and Cytidine to Uridine[nl]Conversion 2.3 Urea-Mediated Phosphoryl Transfer and Intramolecular[nl]Rearrangement 2.4 Pyrimidine Photosanitization 3 Chemoselective Purine Glycosylation 4 Future Scope for Investigation 5 Conclusion